Fantasy Football - QB & RB Rookie Preview + Draft Capital Concerns - Podcast for 4/1

With the quick twitch and the speed, that's what I fell in love with. Jason, do you have any thoughts on Henderson? I echo a lot of what Mike's saying. I think Gibbs is the comp. Gibbs was better, had higher draft capital, I project. But, you know, it wouldn't be shocking to me if the draft falls in a way where Gentie goes six or whatever. that number 10 if the bears, you know, who are trying to recreate what's going on for the lions. Right. And they draft, they draft Gibbs. Yeah, they draft Henderson after they've upgraded the center of that offensive line. That wouldn't surprise me. He does a lot of stuff that you want in fantasy, especially in today's fantasy. Catch the ball, extreme speed. And yeah, I mean, I really love him. I see these three guys.

as like tier one prospects. He's 202 is what I'm seeing on the NFL. Yeah, he's definitely lighter. So that's, that's, uh, it always, when you get right around 200, I get a little bit nervous about utilization. I get nervous about the, the, um, I almost said Thomas Jones. Who am I thinking of? Uh, out of USC, we interviewed him. Out of USC. Yeah. For goodness six. We're running. Oh, Ronald Jones. Ronald Jones, sorry. Sure, yeah, yeah. But the hype and explosiveness, like there's two sides of that coin, right? Like if you've got, are you Gibbs? Or do you slip into a... Gibbs is 59202. Yeah. The draft capital is going to have a lot to do with it. He's the more explosive one. Judkins was the, you know, the Chubb in the... Yes. In the Sonny Michelle, Nick Chubb, Georgia comp for Judkins and Henderson.

One of the things that gives me confidence in Henderson is that it's always been, he was a five-star recruit. He was the number one draft, you know, the number one running back in the class going to college. Then year one as an 18-year-old has 1,255 yards for Ohio State. He's just been great. So I think he'll worry about him if he, like what if he's the second runner? No big deal. No, big deal. I think he will go in the first round. I think all three of these guys will be first round NFL draft picks. But it is. true that the depth of this class could really hurt the draft capital of these guys because these teams could go, man, I really like Treveon Henderson. It's a tier base drafting. Yeah, tier base drafting. You could end up waiting. You're like, I'll just get a really good, because the running backs that go in round three are going to be super more valuable than most third round picks. Like that is the teams that are drafting running backs in the third round, they're doing it right. But.

These guys I still see as clear-cut first-round talent. Those three, I think we all agree, should be the first three off the board. Once you go beyond those three, even though the talent is there, you get into more variety in terms of how both how fantasy analysts and NFL analysts have them ranked and in terms of you might start picking and choosing based on system, based on what type of back that you want. Judkins, we have four, five, and seven. I'm the highest on him right now. I thought solid was kind of the way I saw him on film. He's a bigger back, six foot 220. But production, right? A lot of production. And, you know, five and a half a carry in his final season, 14 touchdowns, just one fumble over two years for Judkins, which is great to see, by the way.

Henderson protected the ball as well. They were teaching him well in Ohio State. He never fumbled over the last two years. I'm the lowest on Judkins, and it's not because I don't think he's a good prospect. It's just because I, like, he's seven for me, and there are seven really good running backs in this class. So this isn't a low. He's not normally my seven. I think he does everything pretty well. He didn't really blow me away at any one specific trait, which is probably why I have him a little lower. Honestly, post-comb combine. Yeah. I'm really higher on him. He was a big winner. He crushed the combine. I mean, elite athlete. I didn't see that on film, but obviously the production was there. Production touchdowns, rushing yardage, capability to handle the load with, you know, being a 220 pound back. So a lot to like with Judkins. You got to remember Nick Chubb was drafted around after Sonny Michelle as the power back as the power back. Sony had the explosiveness. Chubb was the power back. So just.

You know, not that that will repeat, but both of these players, national title winning, productive, well-rounded backs. Caleb Johnson and Cam Scadaboo, the last two names that we'll talk about for the rookie running back overview, I believe. You can mention maybe another favorite from the list. But Caleb Johnson, Mike, you're the lowest, Jason the highest on him, ran a 457. had a bad combine. He did. But his film. Hyperproductive in his Iowa. His 40 seemed slower than the film. Yes. Like on film when he's breaking away, people aren't catching. Kyle, do we have any like miles per hour data on Caleb Johnson? Because I feel like he has to have crushed. He had to have got up to like 22. When I watched the film, there were plays. He's a very patient.

You know, sometimes too patient, very slow starter, waits for the holes to open, but very explosive once it's time to go, and you don't usually catch them. You know, 75-yard run for a touchdown, just a really, really big play machine. He did reach 22 miles an hour last year. Okay, there it is. So the film, it's kind of like puka. Puka goes and runs a slow 40, but his college miles per hour were great. I'm not going to allow the combine. to affect my belief in Caleb Johnson. Afterwards, because I had him at four, you know, watching him, I was unsure at first. The more that I watched, I was like, yeah, this guy is going to hit home runs in the NFL. And then the combine happened. I was like, oh, man, should I move him down? And I'm holding steady on Caleb Johnson. To me, this is the line between star and starter. Yeah, yeah. I think Caleb Johnson can be an NFL starter. I don't know if he can be an NFL star. He is extremely smooth.

I was disappointed with, like, this is a man. This is a big dude. And I don't feel like he played to his size where, like there's some guys who are small and they play big and some guys who are big and they play small. And that, that's how it, that's how it looked to me. I said, like he gets, he gets stuck too much for a player that's 225. Like at the line of. Well, he runs upright for a big guy. So that can hurt him get. you know, get held up. And I do have a note of the get moving after the catch isn't great. So, I mean, that could speak to the 40 of he's a locomotive. It takes a little bit to get it going. Once he's at top speed, he's very fast. But I felt like overall he was, he could be magma hot. And then there's some games where I watched him. Like, this is, this isn't it. So he's, he's not as high as the other guys, but.

He will be, he's fascinating to watch for the draft. Somebody tell me what to believe about the square shaped Cam Scataboo, who 1700 yards last year, including 600 receiving yards. Dominant. Versatility, you know, the run that ASU made into the tournament. It was so impressive. I mean, he was their offense in a lot of ways. He was also a zero star recruit. This was a player that. transferred multiple times. Sacramento State Hornets. Yeah, he was a Hornet. You can't argue with production. You can't argue with the tackle breaking that you saw in film over and over and over again. Great contact balance. I mean, we're from Arizona. I watched ASU all year. Camp Skata Boo was the entire, like you didn't really understand it sometimes. Oh, not at all. That's what I.

That's what I was hit with. Why can't anyone tackle him? Why is he stronger than everyone? It made no sense. You'd watch it and you'd be like, he doesn't look super fast, but he's running away from guys. He doesn't look super big, but he's running over guys. I mean, he runs over. He gets low. He's an angry man. He runs under guys. He is like a mole. He is angry. He is so angry. He just, and he has the Marshawn Lynch thing where it's like, I'm going to hit you over and over. And over and over and over. And it gets easier for me as the game goes on. He broke so many tackles that if you just look at metrics, okay, if you're just going to spreadsheet scout, Camas is as good as prospects that we've seen since, I mean, the prolific statistical production, tackle-breaking production is like you see lists of all sorts of tweets that go out where it's like,

Players who have done X, Y, and Z, and it's like, Sequin Barclay, Christian McCaffrey, and Cam Scadaboo over and over and over. But we don't know that he's going to have the NFL draft capital. He didn't have the high school recruiting prospect. So I'm fascinated to see, does a team invest? Because this is the type of player that after the NFL draft, I could just go, don't care. He's a fourth round pick, don't care. Is there a chance he's a third downback? A third down back? He has the... capabilities for sure I mean like at the next level is there a chance he he kind of finds I don't think I don't think someone's going to have him just be a third down back he was too bruising of a well third down short short yardage maybe sure yeah both he was exclusively a shotgun back as well his contact balance is his top tier he has power my notes on on scataboo are like my brain cannot handle him

Because he seems lumbering and slow. The jump cut takes about two years to complete, and it works every time. I know. There are, I am, and what I've said on the Dynasty podcast is I am all in on Scataboo, unless the NFL tells me that teams are out. Yes. Because what I'm watching, it's only one year, of course. Some of these other guys have a bigger resume. He had one truly elite season. But if an NFL team goes in on him, I will be all in. One of the things, you know, just to give some brief background on Scataboo is that as a junior, he weighed maybe 10 pounds more than he did as a senior. And that was a big point of emphasis from their head coach and their staff. You've got to get your weight down so you can have more explosiveness in the open field, which you saw more of last year. He's very versatile. You know, he can catch the football. You can catch it down field.

It's just, I'm with you guys. I think it's draft capital. And what does the NFL want to tell me about all these confusing film versus numbers? I think someone will go in on him because he is really good. 600 yards receiving in college is really insane. And 1,700 rushing. I mean, this is not, these are not like, oh, he had a good season. This is like an all-timer season. 1700 rushing yards, 600 receiving yards in the same season. You know who doesn't like him is the falcon. rushing touchdowns. The Falcon doesn't like him. Falcon doesn't like him. So you, that's a good sign for him. Yeah, that's a great sign. He reminds me a lot of James Connor, a guy that every single play is picking up extra yards, is breaking one or two tackles, is getting a chunk play, but never running away from guys. James Connor doesn't have a 75-yard run in his system. That's fine. And that's totally fine. This is a player that I think is going to get, you know, eight to 18 yards on the regular.

hard fought yards and wear down a defense. When I look at the rest of our rookie rankings at running back, I see a couple of things that stand out. I see you both fairly high on Devon Neal. I see RJ Harvey at 8 for Jason coming out of UCF. Mike, you've got DJ Giddens in your top 10. Yeah, he's been a riser. So is there another name you want to just throw out there that you're a fan of? Devin Neal is really, really good. I think Devin Neal is in the same group to me with Camp Scataboo, you know, Caleb Johnson. He's in that tier. Wow, he's that high up for you. I really liked Devin Neal quite a bit. I think he is very well-rounded, a very good-neal with it, Mike. Oh, my goodness. Oh, wow. Bust it. I did that to myself. Yeah, good.

No one's listening. But yeah, no, I was a big fan of Devin Neal. Reminded, oh, reminded both of us, this is the player. I remember we scouted independently, totally separate, and we just kept writing down the clear and utter comp that. Devin's single. Yeah, Devin Singletary. And it turned out that had nothing. We figured out it was the same name after we had. That we're already talking about the comp. That's not the kind of comp that gives me charge, though. But he's got... But the thing is Singletary was always a good, capable back. And that's how I see Devin Neal. I don't... But not a headliner. But no, I don't seem that way. The difference to me, though, is that Devin Singletary, if Devin Singletary had Devin Neal's body, he would... Like, Devin Singletary is 57203. He was never, you know, able to... And not fast enough to be 203. Exactly. Whereas...

But his skill, Devin Singletaire's skill, is why he was able to be 57203 and have a long career in the NFL being given carries because he was just really good at the position. I think Devin Neal is good at the position, but he now has a much larger size, body speed. So I think he'll work in the NFL. Well, draft capital is going to tell us a lot of how these teams buy into these guys in the third, fourth, fifth round. We have wide receiver and tight-in rookie previews coming on the Thursday episodes, so don't miss those. If you want to further deep dive any of those running back and quarterbacks, you can check out the Dynasty Pass at Ultimate DraftKit.com. You can check out the dynasty podcast, which I will be going on this week in the most ironic episode in the history of fantasy football. Tune in to find out why. An analysis of top tips for your rookie draft, and I'll be guest appearing on that show as a man.

who trades his rookie picks every year. That is going to do it for today, though. Thank you for joining us. Shout out to the deucers over there. Ashton Gentry, the Ashton Genti lovers, and we'll be back. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.